


The Needs of the Many.

by Littleshebear



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-24 02:33:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17695976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littleshebear/pseuds/Littleshebear
Summary: Set some time between Cayde's death and the lore for 'Abide the Return.'Zavala talks through his feelings about Cayde's death.





	The Needs of the Many.

Suraya stands on the boundary of a City park with Izanami hovering beside her. With the Ghost at her shoulder, she could almost pass for Guardian. Almost. The poncho rather than a cloak is a give-away. They quietly observe a figure who sits alone on one of the park benches.

Izanami finally broke the silence. “Talk to him.” She turned her optic toward Suraya. “Please? I haven’t seen him like this since…” She tails off, drawing on her long memory. “Mare Imbrium. He’d gotten so much better and now…”

“What should I say?” Suraya replies without taking her eyes off Zavala. He’s dressed like a civilian, a hood obscuring his features. He looks diminished somehow, and it isn’t just due the lack of that bulky armour. He sits hunched over, as though physically burdened by some great weight. He is weighed down, she thinks, her heart twisting at the realisation. He always is.

“If I knew the answer to that, I probably would have said it already.” The Ghost nudges her shoulder gently. “Just be with him? Don’t let him wall himself away. Not again.”

“Okay,” she agrees, exhaling slowly. “Give us some privacy?” She walks towards him with small, hesitant steps. She’s suddenly painfully aware of the temporal differences between them. How long do Guardians grieve? How long did it take him to come back from the Great Disaster? How long will it take him to come back from this? She reaches his side and clears her throat to announce her presence.

He looks up at her and says nothing. He gives a nearly imperceptible nod by way of greeting before gazing back out towards the park.

“Hey Guardian.” She says with forced cheer. “Mind if I join you?”

He shuffles up the bench a little to make room for her. “How did you know I was here?”

She sits, easing herself down beside him slowly, as though he’s a skittish animal she’s wary of scaring away. She hesitates before answering, “Izzy brought me here.”

He responds with a gruff, “Hmph,” his disapproval obvious.

“She’s worried about you.” She lays a gentle hand on his arm. “So am I.”

“I’m fine.”

Suraya purses her lips and withdraws her hand. She counts to ten slowly before allowing herself to speak again. She follows the path of his gaze across the park. There’s a child, shrieking with laughter as a woman she assumes is his mother pushes him on the swings. There’s a couple, a man with his head laid in another’s lap, seemingly enjoying the best of the weather before winter arrives. She wonders how they can look so peaceful and content with a gang of kids a few feet away, playing what seems to be a chaotic version of tag. If there are rules governing their cacophonous game, Suraya can’t discern them.

“So whatcha doing?” She says after her urge to admonish him for pretending he’s alright has abated. “Incognito people watching?”

“I like to come here sometimes,” he replies in a monotone. “Remind myself why I do what I do.”

“You need reminding?” She says sceptically. “You?”

“Sometimes.”

“Zavala,” she begins gently, “I don’t think you of all people need-”

“How do you quantify love?” He interrupts.

“Say what now?”

He keeps his eyes fixed on the people in the park. “What scale should we use to measure our grief against those people’s right to live their lives in safety?” He glances at the mother as she lifts her son out of the swing and sets him on her hip. “Does she love her child less than we loved Cayde?” He nods towards the lovers laid on the grass together. “Does our anguish outweigh their right to have a life together? And what about them?” He looks towards the gaggle of screaming children. “Should they grow up in fear because we direct our rage towards the Reef?”

“Are you asking me if I agree with Ikora?” She asks softly.

“I’m asking you what you think.” He screws his eyes shut and knots his brows together. “Individuals are important, I’m trying not to reduce this to a numbers game,” he curls his lip, “That’s what Rasputin would do…but…”

She runs her hand up his arm, letting it rest on his shoulder. She squeezes the tense muscles there are makes soothing shushing sounds.

“Was I wrong?” He opens his eyes and stares at her intently. “Tell me.”

“I think commiting the bulk of our forces to the Reef would be a mistake. We’re still vulnerable from the war.”

“But?” He presses. How did he know there was a “but?” He’s getting good at reading her tells too, it seems.

“But,” she sighs, “I also think Uldren needs to be dealt with. His lackeys are a threat. I think adopting a siege mentality is a mistake.” She gives him a faint smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “You know how I feel about walls.”

His gaze drops toward the ground. “Do you think me cold? Or cowardly?”

“No!” She scoots closer to him, wrapping her arm around his shoulders fully. “No. You care, you care a little too much sometimes. I’m just saying, there are innocents in the Reef too.” She gestures toward the park, “People who matter as much as they do, people who don’t deserve what Uldren is doing, Your compassion doesn’t only extend as far as the City walls, does it? I don’t believe that about you. I know you’re better than that.”

He says nothing in response, he merely twitches an eyebrow a little, works a muscle in his jaw.

“Not what you wanted to hear?” She asks.

“Are you being honest?”

“With you? Always.”

His eyes meet hers again, “Then it’s what I wanted to hear.” 

“I can understand where you’re coming from,” she lays her free hand on his knee and gives a reassuring squeeze. “I was dead against that Guardian running off to Titan to bring you back, remember? I thought they were abandoning the Farm. I was wrong.” She laughs softly, “It’s weird feeling, being glad about being wrong. I usually hate that.”

“Don’t panic, Suraya,” he smirks, taking her hand in hers. “It doesn’t happen often.”

“Seriously though, don’t beat yourself up so much?” She jostles him gently. “I don’t think anyone would envy being in your position right now. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown and all that.”

He straightens up for the first time since they started talking and looks at her with a mixture of surprise and pride. “Have you been raiding my Shakespeare?”

“Maybe? Thought it might help me understand what goes on in that stubborn, blue head of yours.”

He gifts her the ghost of a smile in response before slipping back to his default expression of worry and sadness.

“Hey. You done any crochet lately?” She asks.

He frowns in confusion at the sudden change in subject. “Not for a few days, why?”

“Because I could use a new blanket,” she traces the back of her fingers along his forehead and down his cheek as if a caress could smooth out those lines that have never looked deeper on him, “And you could use a distraction. You’re too tense.”

“What colour?”

“You choose, I trust your taste.” She takes both his hands in hers and pulls him up. “Come along, soldier.”

“Yes ma’am,” he says, putting his arm around her shoulders, while she slips hers around his waist. They relax into each other as they walk together. They could almost be a normal couple instead of a irreverent rebel and a military man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. She resolves to enjoy it for now.

“Have you read Much Ado About Nothing?” He asks her after a comfortable silence.

“No,” she says, “I prefer the ones with battles.”

“I think you’d identify with Beatrice.”

“Why do you say that?”

He chuckles softly and drops a kiss to the top of her head. “Read it while I make your blanket.”


End file.
